The saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” holds true on the other side of the Atlantic, too. The only difference is, we call it rubbish in the UK. Semantics aside, how do you transform household rubbish, especially hard-to-recycle plastic, into a new design aesthetic? Well, if you’re Brit designer Richard Liddle of Cohda Design, you invent a machine and demonstrate in front of a live audience.

Cohda Design’s innovative event took place from October 20 – 28 as part of the UK Design Council’s dot07.com festival. The public was invited to bring plastic waste items to be broken down in Cohda’s modified industrial machinery. The plastic was then re-heated, re-formed and recycled into one long spaghetti-like strand, which was then manipulated to create colorful chairs, tables and whatever else the imagination could dream up.

On the final day of the event, some lucky peeps even got to take one of the funky designs home with them.

Cohda’s philosophy is to “view waste packaging as a valuable resource as opposed to an ecological difficulty”. So, while we want to keep plastic use to an absolute minimum, its good to know there’s an alternative to chucking in the rubbish bin.